Brighton Fringe Review: Joe Foster

The guise of grizzly, mean old comedian isn’t a rare one, but Joe Foster does it well. So well, in fact, that it may not be a guise at all. His late-night show at The Warren, Let’s Get Cynical, starts with some dour curses about his friends who haven’t shown up yet, and when they arrive a few minutes in, it’s to a display of sardonic touchiness usually evidenced by a sitcom character three times his age.

Let’s Get Cynical focuses on Foster’s dislike of well, most things. Colleagues, workplaces, friends, and family: no one and nothing is safe from the weary onslaught. That’s not to say it’s entirely negative: at times he’s positively gleeful as he recounts taunting his brother or scornfully remonstrating against his girlfriend’s love of theatre. As a little insight, one joke relates to a conversation he had with his girlfriend as they ate a KFC, in which she mused, “when you propose, it’s going to be really shit, isn’t it?” to which Foster replied “well darling, check what’s at the bottom of your gravy.”

Foster’s deadpan style and skilled comic timing create a very well-received set and an upbeat atmosphere, also fuelled, one suspects, by both The Warren’s bars and the upcoming bank holiday weekend. When it comes to delivery, Foster’s sharp and acerbic, and as he’s a Brighton local, his jokes clearly hit a personal note for many in the audience. He returns for two more dates at the end of the month, so if you like your comedians waspish and stylishly bitter, don’t miss it.

Based on the experiences of hundreds of child circus performers subjected to child trafficking in Kathmandu, South East Dance and Brighton Open Air Theatre combine an exquisite circus performance with the stories of two extraordinary survivors.